Heart’s Home at Yale: Solidarity is a miracle!

Ouzbekistan - Tadjikistan, August 2006

On September 25th, Rev. Thierry de Roucy was invited by the World Youth Alliance at Yale University at their con­fer­ence to cel­e­brate a Decade of Dignity, for their 10th Anniversary to speak about Solidarity.
Here are some extracts of his talk:

« When I was a young stu­dent in phi­los­ophy and con­sid­ering the immense suf­fering of so many of my brothers around the world, the word « sol­i­dar­ity » sounded like a dream. It was the expres­sion of my deepest wish.
Later, in the slums the reality sur­prised me and gave flesh and bones to my con­cept of sol­i­darity. I remember for instance this very poor Brazilian family giving away the only food left they had in the house without any hesi­ta­tion to the neigh­bors even poorer. Heart’s Home mis­sion­aries who mean to give gen­er­ously of their time and strength sud­denly find them­selves over­whelmed by some­thing much deeper. They find them­selves becoming part of these people’s lives. How many times did I hear them say: « I don’t know what’s hap­pening. These people really matter to me. Their lives have become part of mine » In other words, they find them­selves becoming « friends », where friend­ship means this mys­te­rious sense of a com­mu­nion of des­tiny.
Where does such an expe­ri­ence come from ? How is it pos­sible for true sol­i­darity to bloom on the soil of our humanity, when it is driven most of the time by selfish and lim­ited inter­ests ? Solidarity is a mir­acle. It is not some­thing that we can plan or pro­duce. Solidarity is always a sur­prise that fills us with awe, that points towards the Mystery, that lifts our eyes up to Him who makes us one. And for sure, there is nothing more cor­re­sponding to the deepest long­ings of my heart than to expe­ri­ence such a sol­i­darity towards my life. My very Self is revealed, recre­ated, when someone comes to me and says to me « YOU » in such a way that my humanity sud­denly blooms out­ward. There is nothing more cor­re­sponding to the deepest longing of my heart than the pres­ence of someone who echoes in my exis­tence the sol­i­darity of God, who, through His Incarnation, bonded his des­tiny to ours to a point nobody could ever achieve.
This kind of sol­i­darity goes beyond the realm of jus­tice. It requires mercy. Therefore it demands more than a the­o­ret­ical under­standing of human nature. It demands an exis­ten­tial engage­ment of myself, that is, charity. It plunges me into a rest­less con­cern for humanity. A con­cern that stems from a pas­sion for our brothers’ and sis­ters’ des­tiny, for their hap­pi­ness. A con­cern that leads me to feel respon­sible for him or her, a con­cern that leads me to com­pas­sion.”